Overview & Purpose
E-mail Configuration Screen is responsible for configuring the user mail accounts and E-mail Import plugin is responsible for importing the documents present in a defined form from the user’s mail account. User is allowed to configure any mail account as well as the type of documents which the plug-in will support. This configuration is done per batch class. Multiple email accounts can be setup for each batch class.
Configuration
Mail configuration
Following are the configurable mail account properties:
| Configurable property | Type of value | Value options | Description |
| Username | String | A valid email account username. | The user account name to be configured with Ephesoft on which the Email Import service will keep a watch. |
| Password | String | Corresponding password for the configured username | Password for the configured user account. Password will always visible as 8 * in password field. |
| Incoming Server | String | A valid mail server name | The name of the mail server to which the configured user account belongs. |
| Server type | Dropdown | A valid mail server type.
|
The type of the mail server to which the configured user account belongs. Server Type can be IMAP/POP3. |
| Folder Name | String | A valid and existing mail folder name | The name of the mail folder on which the Ephesoft Email import will be checking. Folder Name cane be Inbox. |
| Is SSL | Check Box |
|
The property that defines whether we’ll be connecting to mail server using the SSL settings or Non-SSL. |
| Enable | Check Box |
|
The property that defines whether user email is enable or disable for importing documents. Enable/disable particular email will be marked with green/red indicator respectively. |
| Port number | Integer | A valid port number | The port number on which the configured mail server type will work. Port number will be in range of 1 to 65535. |
If any field of Email configuration is not valid the field will be shown in red color.
Configurable Properties file
- <Ephesoft installation directory>\ Application\WEB-INF\classes\META-INF\dcma-mail-import\mail-import. properties:
| Configurable property | Type of value | Value options | Description |
| dcma.importMail.cronExpression | String | A valid cron expressions | The CRON expression defining the look up time for the plug-in, i.e. at what time the plug-in looks for any updates in the configured mail account. |
| dcma.supported.attachment.extension | String | List of valid file extensions | Defines the supported documents by the plug-in. Multiple entries are separated by a “;”. |
- <Ephesoft installation directory>\ Application\WEB-INF\classes\META-INF\dcma-mail-import\open-office.properties:
| Configurable property | Type of value | Value options | Description |
| openoffice.serverUrl | List of values |
|
Server used for connecting to the remote open office server instance. Used in case of connecting to external/remote service. |
| openoffice.serverPort | Integer | A valid and available port number. | Port number used for connecting to the open office server instance. Default port is 8100 |
| openoffice.autoStart | Boolean |
|
If the open office server should be started / connected upon XE starts. Default value is false. |
| openoffice.homePath | String | N-A | Path to open office installation. If no path is provided, a default value will be calculated based on the operating environment. |
| openoffice.maxTasksPerProcess | Integer | Any valid integer value. | Maximum number of simultaneous conversion tasks to be handled by a single open office process. Default value for optimized performance is 50. |
| openoffice.taskExecutionTimeout | Integer | Timeout for conversion tasks (in milliseconds). Default value for optimized performance is 30 seconds. |
Email Enable
This feature is responsible for enabling/disabling an email for importing the documents present in a defined form from the user’s mail account. A batch class can have multiple user mail accounts and multiple enable/disable user mail accounts.
Test Email
This feature is responsible to verify whether a configured user mail account is valid. User can check the connection for user’s mail account after configuration of mail account.
Characteristics
- The functionality/service allows the user to set up any number of mail accounts for gathering data.
- The user is allowed to configure the account via UI.
- The functionality/service can support multiple document formats.
- The functionality/service makes use of the open-office to convert the received data files into application usable formats.
- The functionality/service is capable of downloading and saving the attachments of a mail.
Steps of execution/working
- When the plug-in properties have been set up properly, Ephesoft moves ahead with mail downloading by accessing the mail account.
- Email import service reads the user’s mail configuration from the database, and tries to access the user’s mail account using the configured settings.
- If the service is able to connect to the user account, it reads all the mails contained in the configured folder.
- After the service has read the mails, it starts processing multiple mails at a time.
- Each read mail goes through a three step procedure of processing, downloading, converting and creating a batch for the mail.
- If any error occurs processing of a mail, the service sends notification mail to mail accounts configured for notification.
Troubleshooting
Following are few common error messages received due to mal-functioning of the plugin:
| S no. | Error message | Possible root cause |
| 1 | Unable to convert Email into PDF file. | Open office service is either not running or have not been configured correctly |
| 2 | Error in Server Type Configuration, only IMAP/POP3 is allowed. | Plug-in only supports IMAP or POP3 server type. Check the user’s account configuration. |
| 3 | Not able to establish connection. | Connection could not be established for the current user’s account configuration. |
| 4 | Could not find port number. Trying with default value of 995. | Port number specified in the user’s configuration is invalid, hence plug-in tries to connect on the default pop3 port. |
| 5 | Could not find port number. Trying with default value of 993. | Port number specified in the user’s configuration is invalid, hence plug-in tries to connect on the default IMAP port. |
| 6 | Error while reading mail contents | Either email body or other attachments could not be read and converted |
| 7 | Not able to process the mail reading. | Some error in reading the contents of mail. Open-office could not convert the source file into desired. |
Email Import with Folder other than Inbox
Earlier in Email Import Configuration folder name was not editable. It was fixed to Inbox folder only. Now, Folder name is editable for IMAP Server but is fixed to Inbox for POP3 Server.
